Introduction to Efficiency – Video

Transcript:

[Dr. Scott W. Tinker] We’ve built our global energy system, with all its benefits and challenges, for just one purpose. To meet the human demand for energy. We are the only users. We control how much energy we use, and therefore, how much energy we need to produce. Efficiency and conservation, smarter use of energy, have many benefits. Efficiency can make existing conventional facilities like a coal plant power more people, with fewer emissions per person, carbon, and everything else. Efficiency can make future energies that may be lower-powered more powerful. Solar panels can have greater impact, making them more attractive. Because most energies consume water, using less energy means using less water. Lower electricity demand means less new energy infrastructure, less land use, less capital required. Lower oil demand means fewer energy imports, greater security, and can help moderate rising prices, one of the many ways that using less energy saves money, for consumers, for companies, and for governments. But there are three big challenges to efficiency. One is on the supply side. It’s hard to incentivize energy producers to sell less energy. We need to create some workable models. The second is cost. Some efficiency measures have an up front cost that may take a few years to pay back. The biggest is culture. How can we save energy if we rarely think about it? If energy awareness becomes a cultural norm, efficiency will too. It’s time to make efficiency a habit. See the website for ways to do just that.